together!) to provide a place for preaching. All the provisions consist in what is called a shed!"

Our missionary next proceeds to inform the people towards the rising sun, what he had accomplished among "the destitute in Tennessee"-"In this place (Anderson county) I have organized a Sabbath school and a Bible class of thirteen members, and might have had a number more, if they had been able to read!! At this place (the shed in Anderson county!) I held a four day's meeting, including the third Sabbath of July. Several of my brethren come to assist. There was

much feeling, and a few hopeful conversions." In conclusion, Mr. W. says, that in another settlement, the people had promised to build a shed," if he would only preach to them, &c.

REMARKS. With this man Wimpy, I have had a partial acquaintance, since the spring of 1828, at which time, and for years afterwards, he resided in Maryville, the grand emporium of Hopkinsian science; where, in the character of a "poor, indigent, pious young man for the ministry," he both ate bread and wore clothes, he did not obtain by the sweat of his brow. In the first place, however, he was a member of the Methodist church, in the Tellico circuit, and applied for a license either to preach or exhort; but in the judgement of the proper authorities of said church, he was thought not to possess either gifts or graces for the work; whereupon he became displeased, and as I am informed, joined the Hopkinsians. And subsequent events have proven that this opinion of the man was correct. For his scull was so impenetrably thick, and his perceptive powers so extremely dull, that he had to spend well nigh eight years in the seminary, before he even acquired a smattering knowledge of some two or three of the sciences. In the fall of 1829, I published a small pamphlet, in which I represented the president of this seminary, as setting over a nest, warming and stirring his eggs, and hatching out preachers.

Soon after this pamphlet had appeared, I was called on by some of my friends to explain why it was that Wimpy was so long hatching: I replied that he was a sort of goose-egg, and that he would require longer time, &c. Twelve months after this, it was discovered, that there were still no symptoms of his springing into life, whereupon a shrewd old man remarked, "Wimpy must be a wooden goose-egg!" After so long a time, however, he came forth, "as one born out of due time," though he is still a goslin, and in point of intellect, both "faint and feeble." He weighs somewhere between

two and three hundred pounds!-has a quantity of beef above his eye-brows his head being somewhat less than a straw bee-gum, and well nigh as red as a woodpeckers; while he moves about with all the vivacity of an old work steer! If he possessed less longitude, and a little more latitude, he would form a perfect spheriod! Or if his circumference were greater, so as to make his system a homogeneous sphere without rotation, then its attraction on bodies at its surface, would be every where the same; and could he then be suspended in open space, beyond the influence of other attractive bodies, he would play for ever, thereby forming the perpetual motion! But alas for parson Wimpy! his abdominal rotundity and corpulent dimensions are such, as to for ever prevent his being a proper subject for the investigations of philosophy, or the dissertations of science.

I attended a Methodist camp-meeting in Anderson county, a few weeks after this quarterly report was made out, and although gross darkness covered the people, and the youngsters were not able to read, yet, Mr. W. was trying to "take to himself a wife." Really, the reaction and consecutive fever of matrimony, even then, among those heathens, had produced quite a morbid phenomenon in his case. But these little missionaries all have the "premonitory symptoms" of matrimony-others of them are in that state called the incipient collapse; while others are convalescent. In a word, there are none of them but what have "good desires" on the subject of matrimony; and a large majority of them are daily seeking an opportunity to "put forth a holy choice!" This same Anderson county, is one of the thirteen counties in Tennessee, which, a few years ago, were publicly declared to be destitute of the means of grace, by the president of the seminary at Maryville. This county, to my own knowledge is entirely destitute of Presbyterianism; though the Methodists and Baptists, who are quite numerous there, supply this deficiency.

But no tongue can utter, no pencil can paint, no imagination conceive the horrid wickedness which the holy eyes of God, daily and nightly see perpetrated in those sections where Presbyterianism is not the ism of the day! Thus, heavendaring profanity, the open violation of the Sabbath, abominable licentiousness, gambling, vicious amusements, dishonesty, violence, ignorance, and beastly intemperance, are continually murdering the souls and bodies of thousands, in the most moral and enlightened parts of America, because the inhabitants to a man, won't bow to the image and superscription the

Presbyterians have set up! And to cap the climax, Methodism, at once the legitimate offspring and prolific parent of these and all other crimes, has shot far and wide its deadly roots among the inhabitants! For with these men, as is evident from the foregoing chapters, Methodism and moral wastes are sinonymous terms. Gentlemen, cease your lying and slandering, and in future, seek our aid. Misrepresentation you have tried in vain. Methodism has too firm a hold upon the understandings and affections of the people, for you to succeed to any extent without enlisting its influence in your favor. The people will believe their own senses sooner than they will the scribblings of such as slander them. I hardly dare trust myself to pursue this subject. Praying the Great Head of the church, to direct you, reader, to the best and safest results, I remain yours in the kingdom and patience of Christ.

CHAPTER X.

STAWBERRY PLAINS, JEFFERSON COUNTY, EAST TENNESSEE, A MORAL WASTE.

IN the "Initial and Telegraph," for August, 1833, a political paper published in New-Market, I find an account of a three day's meeting held by the Rev. JAMES H. Gass, a Hopkinsian minister, and the regular pastor of the Hopkinsian church at Strawberry Plains. Mr. Gass headed his communications thus, "GREAT REVIVAL!" and after some preliminaries goes on to say: "This part of the Lord's moral vineyard, which has long been SHROUDED with the shroud of MORAL DEATH, and over which the WITHERING VENGEANCE of the Almighty God was hanging, has BEGAN to revive!"

Almost the next sentence is- -"This MORAL WILDERNESS and SOLITARY PLACE seems to be glad!!" And again: "The BARREN WASTE has recently been visited!!!"

This meeting, which lasted several days and nights together, would have continued longer it seems, but says Mr. Gass, "having no assistance the meeting had of course to come to a close. Speaking of the high state of feeling while HE was preaching, he says, "never have I seen so general and simultaneous a feeling, as was at that time-it was truly as on the day of Pentecost, under the preaching of Peter!" Once

more: In relation to the prayer meetings he had held in this neighborhood, and also its moral destitution, &c. he remarks: "I held a prayer meeting at Mr. Douglass's, which was the FIRST RELIGIOUS MEETING EVER HELD AT THAT HOUSE!" REMARKS. This communication I have again and again read, and with feelings of horror and repugnance too; and though I believe, I am possessed of the charity that "hopeth all things," yet, so far as Mr. Gass's "great revival" is concerned, I am destitute of that charity that "believeth all things." It has fallen to my lot, at this present time, (1834) to be travelling in charge of the Dandridge circuit, in the bounds of which this "Strawberry Plains' church" is situated; and I happen to know that there is a society of about forty Methodists there. Having read this article the third time, I withdrew the paper from my eye, and said to myself-where am I? I thought I was in the United States of America-I thought I was in East Tennessee. But that cannot be. This can be no other than Spain, Portugal, Italy, China, or degraded Africa! And again thought I, what century do I live in? I always thought that I lived in the glorious nineteenth. But I must have made a mistake of nine at least. This surely must be the tenth century, the darkest of the dark agescalled by historians the midnight of time! This year, this great prelate James H. Guss, in Jefferson county, caused such a move among the savages of this "moral waste," as has never been since the "day of Pentecost, under the preaching of Peter!" Are the keys of the kingdom in the care of this successor of St. Peter? If so, I would like to enjoy his approving smiles! Truly, a man unacquainted with the moral condition of Jefferson county, would suppose from the above history of a particular section of it, that a darkness broods over it as palpable as that of Egypt; and that its inhabitants are at least a half a century behind the march of mind; or, that they, like so many unpolished barbarians, are totally ignorant of the etiquette of fashionable life! In a subsequent number of this paper, our apostle continues his revival intelligence, in which he says thirteen persons were added to the church-all to use his own words, "hopeful cases!” Of this lieutenant, or vicegerent of St. Peter, I confess I know but little, and with him I have but little to do, since the communications and not Mr. Gass, are the subjects of my review; and yet, he himself makes so prominent a part of his two essays, that it would be unpardonable to withhold him a passing notice. In his first communication, in relation to himself, he uses the personal pronoun1, eleven times; and in the

second, speaking of his preaching, exhorting, praying, calling up the anxious, &c. he uses the pronoun I fourteen times. Thus I preached-I exhorted-I invited the anxious-I advised them so and so-I heard them say so and so-I never witnessed the like-I believe, &c. &c. To parse the different sentences in his communications syntactically, it will be seen that little else is necessary but to understand the first person singular, and to repeat the rule eleven times in the first, and fourteen times in the second, and a similar peculiarity, to a greater or less extent, in every respect, will be found to characterize every paragraph in his two letters. And it will be seen upon examination, that not merely the verbage, but the sentiment, is thus egotistic throughout.

Such hollow-headed arrogance, self-importance, and false insinuation, is enough to shock all who but superficially observe the same. The man when in the pulpit, or while passing to and fro in society, is said to exhibit a great deal of sheepfaced modesty, but when he writes, he exhibits an unusual degree of lion-headed impudence. Beside his frequent use of the pronoun I, me, my, mine, &c. too frequently occur to be worth estimating.

But as it respects the moral and religious condition of this section, there were, at the time these pieces were published, in the bounds of the circuit in which this church is situated, viz. the old Sulpher spring circuit, twenty local preachers, and about twelve hundred members in regular standing, in the Methodist church, besides several Baptist and Cumberland Presbyterian congregations. And in the neighborhood of this Mr. Douglass's, where our brother Peter says he held the first religious meeting," we had at that time, five societies, and regular circuit preaching at each place.

Beside, in the immediate vicinity of this famous revival region, though "solitary place," there were, even then, two Methodist preachers living, to wit, Messrs. Wilkerson and Stringfield, who in point of talents and usefulness, are not inferior to any two Hopkinsian preachers in East Tennessee. And yet, strange to relate, this is a "part of the Lord's moral vineyard, which has long been shrouded with the shroud of moral death!" But perhaps, brother Peter does not consider Methodist preachers "competent" ministers. No verily! Presbyterian ministers alone, are the analyzers of light, the inventors of fluxions, and the demonstrators of the theory of gravitation! They are literary stars of the first magnitude! They alone, constitute sytematic encyclopedias of all the learning and science in our country! Truly, when we are